Week 4 - Robert Z

A02

In Whistleblower, Joy describes the dean's attempt to silence her when she confronted authority. She was scared of getting fired, but there was criminal activity that she could not ignore. Many people in present day are scared and are often controlled by authority. I have a similar story to Joy’s story as a whistleblower. The principal in my high school held a lot of authority, and she would make rules that frustrated many students. For example, we were prohibited to go to Starbucks, and we were not allowed to leave campus during lunch time to purchase food across the street. For many years, students would not be allowed to go to the bathroom during class themselves without security escorting them there. What our principal was really known for was removing staff who she disliked. Each year, there would be a quarter of staff that was replaced and changed, and it was really hard for students to make strong connections to their teachers. The students could sense the fear teachers had toward the principal, but most teachers were too scared to speak out.

It wasn’t until my sophomore year until something triggered nearly the whole school. We had a Chinese teacher that was loved by most students, and she taught from her heart. She would mention to us from time to time how our principal would shout at her sometimes during teacher meetings because she didn’t teach the way the principal ordered her to. The principal decided to fire her in the middle of the school year, and our Chinese teacher told us what happened in tears. We decided to support her by setting up school protests and also sent emails to the San Francisco school district. In the end with all our effort, our Chinese teacher was fired, and she was not even allowed back into the school to get her belongings. Our teacher sent out a heart wrenching email describing the agony she went through, and the abuse and treatment she received from the principal. Nothing ended up happening to the principal for her acts of racism and abuse toward our teachers, and she even renewed her contract at the end of the school year.

Question: What factors in our society lead people to fear, and go along with authority?

A worker at a nursing home in the UK for senior citizen gets fired by her manager after she reveals institutionalised abuse leading to the death of five seniors.

References:

RT. (2013, November 3). Care(less) Homes: Whistleblower fired after revealing UK nursing home abuse [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwcj3-4ern0